His Life Matters “Just as every cop is a criminal, and all the sinner’s saints,” The Rolling Stones: Beggars Banquet. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former […]

Observations A majority of fragile-community residents (54%) say they would like the police to spend more time in their community, while just 5% say they would like the police to spend less time there. As to moving, three-fourths cite crime as a major reason (51%) or minor reason (25%) for wanting to do so. But […]

Photo of Leonard Sipes Observations To defend an agency, you have to be honest. You have to be helpful. You have to be knowledgeable. You have to available. But beyond all of this, you have to talk, explain, defend and admit errors when warranted. We are mostly good people doing honorable jobs. Why isn’t that […]

Police Officers Observations Will cops return to proactive policing? Is community support really there? Can trust be rebuilt? Why aren’t communities taking responsibility for their own safety? Stop asking cops to do the impossible. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every […]

Summary Are there fewer deaths of police officers due to cops being less aggressive? Officer deaths dropped to its lowest level in four years. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for […]

Observations Technology has not had a game-changing impact on policing in terms of dramatically altering the philosophies and strategies used for preventing crime, responding to crime, or improving public safety. The bottom line of technology? It’s very labor intensive for it to be effective. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national […]

Observations Many of us from the former director of the FBI to data from Pew to research institutions to national law enforcement organizations suggest that the increase in violent crime in 2015 and 2016 is linked to cops holding back; they are not being proactive due to harsh publicity. There is a considerable decrease in national arrests […]

Observation Is it time to consider that our approach to law enforcement has been dysfunctional to the point where cops have lost faith in the system? The bottom line is that many officers are stating that if there is no justice, there will be no peace. They will not risk their lives for an unappreciative […]

Observations The focus of this study is proactive policing (self-initiated efforts to reduce crime) versus traditional tactics such as responding to calls and routine patrol. The data indicate that most proactive police efforts reduce crime in the short run. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national and state criminal justice agencies. […]

Observations “According to the Department of Justice, the number of these records that are actually uploaded is staggeringly low…” ”Even the FBI acknowledges that its NCIC database is limited, noting that it contains only about 50 to 55 percent of all available criminal records…” Devin Kelley’s violent past went undocumented. He’s not the only one. […]

Police Van Observation Half (51 percent) of violent victimizations from 2012 to 2015 were intraracial. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information […]

Observations The number of officers killed as a result of criminal acts in 2016 increased by 25 when compared with the 41 officers who were feloniously killed in 2015. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five years of speaking for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed multiple times by every national news outlet. Former Senior […]

Observations Antonin (Anthony) Scalia (deceased) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (current) were friends and Associate Justices for the U.S. Supreme Court. They were fierce ideological opponents. Both agreed that their friendship and willingness to debate made their Supreme Court decisions stronger, and their personal lives better. We need to move from argument winning to problem-solving. Author Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr. Thirty-five […]

Observations The Heritage Foundation offerers a new report on crime and justice. The justice system needs to do a better job of telling our story. We need to control our own message. We need to distribute it directly to the public. It’s not rocket science. A billion fourteen years old’s take and lift video to […]

Observations To the tens of thousands of victims of increasing violent crime, telling them that, statistically, they have never lived in safer times seems uncouth and disrespectful. Lacking social indicators as to poverty or jobs (unemployment is currently at an all-time low), the only explanation for the rise in violent crime is the morale of […]

Chief Lawrence Battiste of the Mobile Police Department in Alabama sadly reports the death of Officer Justin Billa. Officer Billa was shot and killed as he and another officer attempted to contact and apprehend a murder suspect. Officers received a call of a woman lying in the street. They determined the victim had been murdered... […]

The Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles yesterday unanimously recommended clemency for Thomas Bartlett Whitaker, the first time in a decade the BPP has recommended against a death sentence. Whitaker orchestrated the murder of his family and his father, the only surviving victim, has been campaigning to save him from the death chamber. I mention […]

Calling illegal-gun trafficking “contagious,” a Chicago researcher says that despite his city's strict gun control, someone who wants to use a weapon to commit a crime can easily obtain one using social media or other networks on the underground market.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R) is a national leader in leveraging evidence-based policies to sustain the state’s strong fiscal position, foster economic growth, and improve government efficiency. Over the governor’s seven years in office, he has created jobs, tripled Tennessee’s rainy day fund, decreased the state’s debt, and invested in education. This year, Gov....

States send less than half as many youth to residential facilities as they did in the late 1990s, but new data from the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention show that many juveniles in out-of-home placements were not confined for serious and violent crimes. In 2015, 23 percent of youth in […]

After peaking in 2008, the nation’s imprisonment rate fell 11 percent over eight years, reaching its lowest level since 1997, according to an analysis of new federal statistics by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Thousands of communities and families across the country are still reeling from 2017—one of the most destructive and expensive years on record for natural disasters. Coastal and inland floods inundated a broad swath of the country—from California to Texas and Missouri to Florida—damaging homes, roads, and bridges, and closing many institutions, including schools.

This ongoing, occasional series features interviews with a variety of influential leaders who discuss how they became involved in criminal justice reform, how their views have evolved—sometimes in unexpected ways—and what’s needed to sustain progress.

The courts have found that the Met failed in its civic duty to serve victims of a heinous crime. As a society we will have to confront the role of the victim in the post-sentencing process tooThere is no doubt that the Metropolitan police committed terrible errors in their handling the case of John Worboys, […]

An off-duty Prince George’s County police officer was shot and killed Wednesday morning while helping a woman next door in an incident of domestic violence, the department’s police chief said. Cpl. Mujahid Ramzziddin, a 14-year veteran of the department, was fatally shot by a man with a shotgun...

Democrats are poised to reject three Republican bills to loosen restrictions on guns Wednesday as the national debate about firearms following last week’s high school shooting in south Florida has forcefully made its way into Colorado and the state legislature.

Each case demonstrates how the tools used to fight crime and measure crime trends in the United States are outdated. Even as certain kinds of crimes are declining, others are increasing — yet because so many occur online and have no geographic borders ...

The Dunwoody Police Department is currently looking for Laverne Harold Squires, age 79, a Dunwoody Resident. Squires is suffering from Alzheimers. He was last seen leaving his residence at approximately 4:30PM on Friday. He left in ...